Harry Potter Fans Commemorate the Battle of Hogwarts

Today marks the 18th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, and fans around the world are commemorating this historical wizarding event.

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With the resurgence of Harry Potter in mainstream popular culture, May 2nd is suddenly standing taller and looming larger in the minds of fans around the world. Today, the date marks 18 years since the Battle of Hogwarts was fought and ended the Second Wizarding War when Harry Potter defeated Voldemort.

Perhaps part of the reason that the date feels more real this year than in years past is due to Rowling’s commemorations on Twitter. But I think it also is because of the nearing debut of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Before Cursed Child was a reality, the Battle of Hogwarts was an event still fresh, even though according to Rowling’s dating methods, it actually happened in 1998. With apologies to Faulkner:

“For every wizard boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two oclock on that May afternoon in 1998, the students are in position behind the fallen stones, the wands are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and the body of Harry Potter himself with his lightning bolt scar and his wand in one hand probably and the resurrection stone in the other carried up the hill, waiting for that moment to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Granger and Weasley and Longbottom and Lovegood look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Hogsmede, Diangon Alley the world, the golden dome of the Ministry itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made three years ago….”

But with the finality of Cursed Child’s arrival, suddenly it is no longer that morning in 1998 all the time. Those events really did happen nearly twenty years ago. The dead have been buried for decades, Fred Wealsey, Remus Lupin, Tonks and all lie silent, and Harry, Hermione and Ron have gotten on with their lives. And all we can do is remember their names and their lives and hold them in our hearts.

In only a few short weeks we’ll learn how those who survived the day fared as well…